We'll be back

When I was growing up, my youth pastor would ask for book reports and if they were up to par he would give us a dollar coin. So, being so drawn to the rare dollar coin (its actually not that rare), I've read probably over 100 different books between 1st grade to 5th grade. While I was writing countless book reports on what each story was about and what its symbolized, I recognized how much I enjoyed reading and falling mindlessly into a paper book. Now as I college student, I can honestly say I prefer reading print. Even for my classes, if I could print every article and read it, I would. Sadly, ink is expensive and too many trees would be wasted. But my reasoning is that I would rather be able to highlight and write my thoughts on the paper as I read. Right now, my sister is 8 years old. She is growing up in a world where iphones have always been a thing and instant access to technology and web media never ceased to exist. Just now, I called my sister and asked her if she would rather read from an actually book or a kindle. She told me a kindle because she wouldn't have to put away her books in her bookshelf.

Regarding Professor Chyi's research and theory, I do agree with her in the fact that print newspaper will probably not go away, at least for another couple of decades. So even for me and my generation, the millennials, may prefer print over a web document because we remember the age before the instant web access. But what happens when my sister grows up? Will she buy books for her children or kindles? And then what about her kids' kids? and then their kids? I think it is completely possible the print media/newspaper could one day disappear.

BUT.

Let's talk about content for a minute. I think that what people find amusing and important have degraded in a sense. Flash back to the 1940s, World War II has happened and commercial television has just emerged. Newspapers back then were huge in the sense of knowing what is going on in the world, politically and economically. There were tons of crucial things going on in the US and the US people wanted to know about it. They wanted to know how the the NATO alliance was being formed, what the Holocaust was about etc. because as a country we were being directly impacted and being transformed into a different nation. I'm not saying that things going on in the world right now aren't as important. But the priorities that people put on what's important has definetly changed. If you put an article of the elections and then a BuzzFeed article on print or online. In my opinion, majority of people are probably more drawn to the trending cat video or Adele's performance at the Grammy article, than the 411 on current elections.

Another Point I wanted to bring up in convenience. That's a huge factor that should be accounted for in print and online media. People are not going to go out of their way to look up news, so I think that is a big reason why print newspapers could still be so prevalent. There is something about picking something up right in front of you or being given something to read, than going out of your way to find something interesting online. 

I feel like its too early to predict if print newspaper will become distinct. There are still generations living who have become accustomed to print media, and habits are hard to break. So my conclusion is lets wait a couple decades and try this again later.